Nine Hundred, One Thousand and Thousand One Nights
by Ai Tennshi
Summary: Three nights in the lives of Kurogane and Fay, each at a different stage of their journey.
1. One Thousand Nights

_Disclaimer: I own nothing recognizable from Tsubasa RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE._

**One Thousand Nights**

It was the middle of the night—past midnight, probably—and it was silent.

There was still the incessant chirping of the crickets and the occasional rustle of the trees as the wind swept by, but that was all.

It felt odd, being in a city that was so quiet at night. Usually there were a variety of sounds in cities—whirring or clattering vehicles, pattering footsteps, occasional shouts and rowdy singing from drunks out late and unable to find their ways home…

Still, it was a welcome sort of silence. The entire city was fast asleep—partially the cause of the silence, and partially because of the silence.

But Fay couldn't sleep.

Not long ago, nights like these would have found him secure and comfy and warm. But now he was curled up on the edge of the bed, cold and unable to sleep.

He blamed it on the person on the other side of the bed; on the single blanket that was stretched taut between them, not allowing for much warmth on either side.

Not long ago, nights like this would have found them snuggling together in the middle of the bed; not curled up on opposite sides, backs facing each other as they attempted to keep as far from each other as possible.

It was on that very first night after leaving their respective worlds and ending up traveling together with the children that they had developed the habit of snuggling. Kurogane had been so moody, so frustrated that day, and Fay had found that annoying him was perhaps more entertaining than anything he had seen or done in years. That was what had resulted in the silly nicknames; that was what had resulted in their habit of snuggling.

Fay had suggested that they snuggle as soon as Sorata and Arashi had left the room to let them sleep. Kurogane, naturally, had looked at Fay with a mixture of alarm and disbelief before dragging his futon as far away from Fay's as it would go. Fay had allowed him to prepare for bed, doing the same as well. But when they settled down to sleep, Fay simply sat on his futon waiting for Kurogane to lie down. As soon as Kurogane had lain down, Fay stood, crossed the room in quick strides, and was snuggled up against Kurogane's back a mere second later.

Kurogane had protested and fought, but it shocked both of them when Fay did not tease back. In fact, when Kurogane looked back to snarl angrily at Fay, he had found the mage curled up in a ball and clutching the back of his shirt in fisted hands; Fay's face had been scrunched up with his eyes closed as though he were desperately fighting something inside himself. The ninja had absolutely no idea what upset the mage so, but could not find it in him to shove the man away. So it was that with a cluck of his tongue, he had rolled back without a word and let Fay snuggle all he wished.

Fay never told Kurogane that on that first night, the warmth of another body beside his own, one that he could simply hold and snuggle, had pierced his heart like a knife. He himself had not realized how much he desired to simply hold another body and be held in return. When Kurogane had, at least, allowed him half of that, it had taken a ridiculous amount of effort not to throw his arms around the ninja and hold him as tightly as he could. The desire to annoy Kurogane out of his mind had gone without a trace.

That was the night that had started their routine; the night that had been the first in a series of days where Fay teased Kurogane ruthlessly and nights where they snuggled like nothing else mattered. Surprisingly, it had not been more than a few nights after that first one when Kurogane had turned around to stroke Fay's hair a few times before wrapping his arms around the mage as well.

Fay knew that Kurogane knew that every night that they were assigned separate rooms and therefore did not snuggle, Fay was plagued by nightmares—nightmares that never came to him when snuggling with Kurogane. And at the same time, Kurogane knew that Fay knew that Kurogane himself had no idea what had compelled him to let Fay snuggle with him that first night, pitiful or no; nor did he know what had compelled him to roll over and snuggle him back not long after that.

When Fay's teasing had come to an abrupt halt, so had their tradition of snuggling. Fay knew well that he had been spoiled by the absence of nightmares, and forced himself to endure them night after night. Kurogane sometimes awoke to his sobs or horrified cries in the middle of the night, Fay knew, but had better sense than to try and comfort him.

But sometimes, Fay couldn't help but wish that Kurogane would just ignore everything he said and snuggle him anyway. Fay silently cursed himself for the thought, but not before allowing himself a few moments to revel in the daydream. After that he would firmly tell himself that he was not to think that way. He needed no one, and deserved to suffer. Besides, more recently, there had been nights when his nightmares were not quite so bad.

Fay did not realize—or perhaps refused to realize—that the nights when his nightmares were not so bad were the nights when he and Kurogane had to share a room. He did not know that Kurogane had finally lost his patience with the sobs and cries that woke him in the middle of the night, and would sometimes come over to him and stroke his hair, whispering soothing words; his touch and voice calmed Fay's subconscious.

Fay wished there were more sounds. At least if there were sounds, he could focus on those rather than on his thoughts; that would lull him to sleep. With no more than the crickets' chirping, he could only think about the nightmares that awaited him in his sleep.

Kurogane gave a grunt and rolled over.

Fay sat up in surprise and turned to look at him. Maybe Kurogane was unable to sleep as well…

But his eyes were closed when Fay looked at him. His brows were furrowed, and he was drenched in cold sweat. Kurogane gave another grunt and rolled over again; momentarily, he gave a soft sob-like sound and rolled over yet again.

Fay stared at the ninja in surprise: maybe he wasn't the only one troubled by nightmares when they did not snuggle. Fay stared at Kurogane as he tossed and turned, wondering what he should do. Kurogane was keeping to his own side of the bed even as he tossed and turned, and his grunts and cries were soft—so soft that Fay probably wouldn't have noticed them if there had been any other noises outside to listen to—so theoretically, he was not bothering Fay. Fay should have simply laid back down and gone back to his attempts to go to sleep.

Fay's hand reached out as though it had a will of its own. Fay stopped it; but then he found himself wondering if he really could leave Kurogane this way as though it meant nothing to him.

It should have meant nothing; the fact that Fay couldn't bring himself to leave Kurogane was, in itself, proof that he was far too close to another person than he wanted to be. But then again, he already knew that he had let Kurogane get too close to him—this was nothing new.

As he thought about it, hand hovering over Kurogane's head, Kurogane turned again. Fay's hand was buried in the ninja's black hair, and, though the touch had been brought about through no will of Fay's own, the ninja's body leaned into it, calming considerably.

It was just the warmth of another body, Fay told himself. Everyone needed and wanted contact with another body, whether or not they were conscious of it. Fay himself had experienced the feeling that first night when he had jokingly snuggled Kurogane.

In no way had Fay come to relax at Kurogane's touch more than anyone else's. In no way could Kurogane be soothed now by the subconscious knowledge that it was Fay's hand now stroking his hair. In no way was it because this was Kurogane that Fay felt his own mind relaxing as he ran his fingers through the short black hair. It was all just the need for human contact.

Fay tried not to think about what he was saying—deep down, he was well aware that he was lying to himself. Kurogane, after all, did not take easily to human contact. If that hand had been anyone but Fay's, he would have awoken and sprung to his feet in an instant. If Fay had been stroking Syaoran or Sakura's hair, he himself would not have been so completely eased by the contact.

When Fay lay back down, he was at the center of the bed facing Kurogane, continuing to soothingly stroke his hair. Eventually drowsiness began to settle in Fay, and he retracted his hand, intending to roll over and scoot back to the edge of the bed.

But as soon as he had retracted his hand, an arm shot out, caught him around the waist, and pulled him flush up against Kurogane's body. Fay did not need to look up to know that Kurogane was still asleep—it was simply a reflex that came of their long-time habit of snuggling. Kurogane had always pulled him into a snuggle in his sleep when he snuck Kurogane's room in the middle of the night after a particularly frightening nightmare.

The mage considered pulling gently away so as not to wake the ninja, but when he felt Kurogane nuzzling his hair, decided against it. He refused to think of why he was succumbing to this temptation, and instead pressed his face against Kurogane's chest as he used to.

Fay found himself struck by an urge to cry, and was shocked at himself. Had he really missed their snuggles so much? He found his hands fisting in the material of Kurogane's shirt as he held back the tears. Kurogane's hand on his back was making soothing circular motions—a subconscious habit he had apparently acquired on the nights when they were assigned to separate rooms, and Fay would sneak into Kurogane's bed in the middle of the night to escape his nightmares.

Fay drifted off to sleep, burying his face even deeper into Kurogane's chest as he allowed himself to relax as the familiar scent enveloped him for the first time in far too long.

Kurogane cracked an eye open, and upon seeing that Fay had fallen asleep, planted a kiss on the top of his head. Fay always woke earlier than he in the mornings: he had no doubt that the mage intended to be gone before he awoke, and to pretend that this had never happened. But Fay didn't have to know that Kurogane always awoke when he felt his subconscious moving to snuggle the mage on nights when Fay should not have been there—a protective instinct born of the amount of distress that Fay was generally in after a nightmare. Kurogane wiped away the single tear running down Fay's cheek.

He wrapped his arms more tightly around the smaller man and let himself revel in his presence before he drifted off to sleep.


	2. Nine Hundred and Ninety Nine Nights

**Nine Hundred Ninety-Nine Nights**

The first night that their relationship evolved beyond where their activities in a shared bed were still acceptable under the definition "platonic" was their first night in Yama. The day had been one full of tension and it was their first time being separated from Mokona and the children. Certainly, Kurogane could communicate with the locals, but Fay could not.

Fay trusted Kurogane as well as he could, but the locals were another matter. Fay could read people through their mannerisms and their words, but it was rather unnerving to discover that the lack of words robbed him of his ability to read people so adeptly.

The whole time the leader of the locals was conferring with Kurogane, Fay sat silently in the background and pretended to be mute. He hoped that Kurogane would give some explanation along those lines so that people wouldn't be surprised when he failed to speak.

There was no telling when Mokona and the children would come, and for all they knew, it could be far in the distant future.

It didn't help Fay's anxiety that Kurogane's companion kept looking back at him, and he knew that they were speaking of him, but not of what.

The whole situation was just the kind of thing that turned one into a ball of anxiety and coiled in the chest and stomach, just waiting for a release.

Fay wondered idly what Kurogane was telling the man regarding their relationship, or if he was even mentioning it at all.

He had his answer when the never-ending conference finally came to an end and he rose behind Kurogane and followed him down to a pair of sliding doors that opened into a room where two mattresses were spread out on opposite sides of the room.

Nothing, then.

Whether or not Fay was disappointed that Kurogane had failed to speak of him as any more than a travel companion was beside the point. He was used to their cuddling, and wasn't about to give it up any time soon.

So as soon as the leader of the local people had left, Fay started setting about moving their mattresses to the center of the room. Kurogane growled something Fay didn't understand, pretending to protest like he usually did.

Fay looked up at him and smiled one of his not-entirely-genuine smiles at the words which he could not comprehend. Kurogane hesitated, then turned his back and growled something that Fay decided to interpret as permission to continue moving the mattresses.

When the two narrow mattresses were laid side by side, so close that they were almost overlapping, Fay smiled and removed his jacket to get into bed.

As he was snuggling under the covers on the left mattress, he heard Kurogane sigh, and then the rustling of Kurogane removing the outer layers of his clothing as well.

Fay edged to the right side of his mattress, waiting for Kurogane to get into the other mattress.

But when Kurogane did so, he promptly rolled over to face the other way.

Rather shocked, Fay sat up and stared, and considered teasing him to hide the uncertainty he felt…and then remembered that he could no longer do even that. He felt the smile slip for a split second before he glued it back in place.

Then he lay back down and studiously rolled over so that his back faced Kurogane as well.

He wondered what Kurogane hoped to accomplish by breaking their unofficial tradition of cuddling now. It was the only string of normalcy left to Fay—oh, he could use his magic to understand the language, but that would be cheating after he had sworn not to use his magic again, not without the tattoo—and now Kurogane had snapped that as well. Was he a masochist?

Then again, Kurogane was able to understand the local language. That gave him an advantage—no doubt the situation was easier for him.

Did he even realize that he was crushing Fay's one sanctuary? Probably not. Kurogane was too kind to do such a thing deliberately.

But he was also shrewd. Perhaps he had sensed the tension that was coming close to overwhelming Fay and mistaken it for something else.

Well, if he hoped to lower the tension with this stunt of him, at any rate, he was failing miserably. Fay was more tense than ever, and felt like a string about to snap.

He heard Kurogane sigh and roll over. The string was pulled tight now, and smaller strands were beginning to let go—if it kept fraying at this rate, it would snap in no time.

It was the warmth of the large hand on his back that snapped the string.

Fay sprang up to a sitting position and spun around to yell at Kurogane, and realized that no matter what he said, it would be useless because they could no longer comprehend one another. So he glared, feeling like a waterskin filled too far and about to burst.

But it was Kurogane who finally broke, and when he reached up and grabbed the back of Fay's head to drag him down into a bruising kiss, Fay broke down as well. As he clawed at Kurogane's clothing and dragged it off with as much brutality as haste, Fay absently wondered if Kurogane's level of tension had, in fact, been higher than his own.

_Worrywart,_ Fay thought affectionately as Kurogane rolled them over to trap Fay beneath his larger frame to make the union of their bodies somewhat easier.

It was a brutal night, and in the morning both were sporting the bruises that proved that, but that was not what bothered Fay in the morning. It was the underlying affection that he had felt both in himself and in Kurogane's actions, and suddenly, for the first time in years, Fay found himself wondering if he was actually beginning to care.


	3. A Thousand and One Nights

_Author's Notes: Final chapter! At last!!_

**A Thousand and One Nights**

"We shouldn't," said Fay between kisses. "Syaoran-kun and Mokona are in the next room."

"Yeah," agreed Kurogane, pulling away. "We shouldn't."

They looked at each other for a moment, then Fay wrapped his arms and legs around Kurogane and pulled him down flush against himself again. Kurogane licked Fay's lips, which parted for him at once. They both knew that short of an obvious interruption, there was little chance that they wouldn't take this all the way.

Since leaving Clow, the pair of them had been painfully aware that one day, something would have to change. Kurogane had promised Princess Tomoyo that he would return, and Kurogane was not one to break such promises.

Neither had addressed the matter of whether or not Fay would accompany Kurogane when the time came. It was far in the future, the were sure, and any number of things could change between now and then. And, perhaps, each of the pair feared the possibility that he might be told something he didn't want to hear.

Instead, they acted as though little had changed between them since that day years ago, when they had met at the Dimensional Witch's shop and paid the price to travel across worlds. They argued and teased during the day—and if they were more tender with one another than they had once been (like always walking side-by-side, or wiping each other's mouths during a meal), then neither Syaoran nor Mokona had mentioned it.

And at night, they snuggled. Or they made out. Or they had sex. Or some combination of the three. But they always snuggled.

Yet for the past week, they had been in a world where they were given one double bed between all of them. Kurogane had conceded the bed to the other three (being the kind father, as Fay had giggled teasingly) and slept on the couch.

The couch most certainly did not have enough room for two, so there had been no snuggling all week.

It had been the first time since the resuming of their travels after Clow that they had had to go more than one night without snuggling. Neither of them had slept very well.

So it had been a blessing to come to a new world where they were allotted two rooms: one with a single bed, and one with a double bed.

They both were hard. Each knew that the other was hard—it was hard not to know, given their proximity.

But there was no rush. They were in each others' arms again, and sexual gratification was secondary. They were not divesting each other of their clothing to sate their lust—they were divesting each other of the barriers that were keeping them from being as close to the other as they could possibly be.

"I bet this isn't healthy," laughed Fay breathlessly when they had calmed, and were merely snuggling.

"Needing each other? No, I doubt it is," Kurogane agreed, tightening his arms around the mage.

"I can't live without you anymore." The laughter was gone from Fay's voice, and Kurogane kissed the single tear that threatened to trickle down Fay's cheek; the drop of moisture seeped into Kurogane's dry lips and was gone.

"I love you," whispered Kurogane.

They fell asleep, and slept more restfully than they had in a week.

And then they were woken in the early hours of the morning by Syaoran's cry of alarm when he opened the door and saw them unclothed and barely concealed beneath the sheets.

"Maybe we should have told him," Fay remarked, rubbing his eyes as he stood to go close the door after Syaoran had bolted away.

"I'll talk to him," Kurogane replied from the bed with a yawn.

"Always the good Daddy, my Kuro-pyon," Fay giggled.

"Yours indeed," said Kurogane lowly. His tone implied sarcasm; the quirk of his lips and the smile in his eyes did not.

Fay walked back to the bed to kiss him. Then he smiled mischievously. "Unfortunate that I have to share you with Princess Tomoyo."

Kurogane gagged. "_Never_ bring her up while kissing me again. Disgusting." He pushed a giggling Fay off the bed and stomped off to find his clothes before he went after Syaoran.


End file.
